This invention relates generally to privacy settings, and in particular to dynamically updating privacy settings of a social network user.
Social networks, or social utilities that track and enable connections between members (including people, businesses, and other entities), have become prevalent in recent years. Social networking websites allow members to communicate information more efficiently. A member has a profile that describes the member's interests, geographic location, age, interests or hobbies or other information describing the member. For example, a member may post contact information, background information, job information, hobbies, and/or other member-specific data to a profile associated with the member on a social networking website. Other members can then review the posted data by browsing member profiles or searching for profiles including specific data. The social networking websites also allow members to associate themselves with other members, thus creating a web of connections among the members of the social networking website. These connections among the members can be exploited by the website to offer more relevant information to each member in view of the members' own stated interests in their connections.
Social networking websites typically allow users to select a variety of privacy settings related to applications, subscription-based services, other members and the like. The privacy settings regulate the ability of additional members to access data associated with a member. For example, the privacy settings allow the member to allow a certain group of members, such as the member's friends, to access member data while preventing members outside of the group from access member data. However, in a social network website member data is distributed using a variety of channels, some of which indirectly communicate data between members. For example, a first user may obtain information about a second user through data about the first user received by members who are common friends of the first user and the second user.
Conventionally, when a user modifies a privacy setting, direct data communication between the user and additional users is modified accordingly. However, because a social networking website includes multiple information pathways in which data can be communicated between users, to implement a privacy setting effectively, each affected information pathway needs to be modified to prevent data distribution through indirect data pathways. Hence, to implement privacy settings in a social networking website effectively, each information pathway communicating data between users needs to be identified and modified according to the privacy setting.